This invention relates to rolling shutters and, more particularly, to a novel foldable rolling shutter which, when raised, can be compactly folded into a very small space.
As is well known, the curtain of a rolling shutter of the kind concerned comprises flat bars which are hinged to one another along their longitudinal edges and, during the lowering and lifting, guided in laterally spaced grooves. In its open position, the curtain is usually rolled up on a drivable upper roller. With the presently usual high clearances of window openings, this leads to relatively bulky rolls requiring a correspondingly sized hood in the lintel recess. The needed space, particularly the depth of the recess perpendicularly to the wall face, is correspondingly large. That is why attempts have already been made, in particular with garage doors having wide bars, not to roll the curtain but to fold it to a bar pack located overhead and extending perpendicularly to the wall face, inwardly or outwardly. The pack formed by such folding has a relatively limited height given by the thickness of the bars, but its horizontal extension inwardly (or outwardly) is relatively large and, consequently not usable with conventional windows having relatively narrow lintel recesses, not to mention the relatively complicated folding mechanism.